Meet our team

Rock Juice is a San Francisco-based natural wine club and bottle shop. We're a small, sommelier-led team, personally curating a bi-monthly wine club for all kinds of natural wine lovers. Every wine we send out meets our strict natural wine standards while also being clean and delicious, along with the stories and tasting notes that bring each wine to life. It's like having a local wine shop on speed dial, or a sommelier best friend.

The Team

We're a small, all woman team dedicated to discovering and sharing our favorite natural wines -- and the stories behind each bottle. With a choose-your-own-adventure Natural Wine Club, gift sets and loads of natural wines by the bottle, Rock Juice is on a mission to bring natural wine mainstream and accessible to wine lovers everywhere.

Rock Juice was founded by Advanced Sommelier and former restaurateur Melissa Gisler Modanlou, who selects every wine and curates every club. A serial entrepreneur who has spent the past 15 years working in wine, first opening and running both a wine bar and wine/cheese retail shop in San Francisco (Ottimista + Spuntino) before diving head first into natural wine with the Rock Juice platform. Now she spends her days chasing down honest and delicious wines from inspiring small producers around the world for Rock Juice. Melissa’s philosophy, and the driving force behind Rock Juice, is transparency in wine - know what you’re drinking, how its made, and by whom. And most importantly, enjoy. On a Tuesday even. Because life is too short to live only for the weekend. Melissa has a WSET Level 3 certification with Distinction, and a palate that leans towards mineral-driven, high acid wines (bonus points for rocky/volcanic soils!)

Lindsey Schlemm is our customer experience manager. She joined the Rock Juice team in 2019 after previous careers in architecture, property management, and real estate. Once introduced to the wonderful world of natural wine, she embraced the lifestyle whole-heartedly and has never looked back! Lindsey loves all things Pet-Nat, funky oranges, and easy breezy chillable reds.

Patience Boston is our creative brand & web guru. She first joined Rock Juice full time in 2019, and after slinging wine, she set back to the corporate world to do work in branding. While she may no longer be in SF with Melissa, her love of natty wine and Rock Juice has kept her close, using her creative skillset and paintbrush to help share RJ with the people.